Can Tarmac Delays Be Minimized? An Application of Multiple-Stage Stochastic Linear Programming with Recourse

Airline and airport analysts must make operational decisions in a series of stages. They are challenged to minimize the impact of uncertainty to optimize constrained resources in a dynamic environment. Whereas sensitivity analysis may be appropriate for deterministic decision problems, such analysis may not be suitable for making decisions under uncertainty. This paper explains how aviation practitioners can improve ground movements based on some key operational variables (departure capacity and departure counts), as well as some random variables (taxi-out delays and departure demand). This paper also demonstrates how a multiple-stage stochastic program with recourse can help airline and airport operators generate a set of scenarios related to some initial conditions illustrated by the case of New York’s JFK airport.